They gave precision to the questions under discussion; and
their controversies defined the traditional opposition of ethical
opinion, and separated moralists into two hostile schools known as
Utilitarian and Intuitionist.
As regards the former question--that of the origin of moral ideas--the
Utilitarian School held that they could be traced to experience; and
by 'experience' they meant in the last resort sense-perceptions
and the feelings of pleasure and of pain which accompany or follow
sense-perception. All the facts of our moral consciousness,
therefore,--the knowledge of right and wrong, the judgments of
conscience, the recognition of duty and responsibility, the feelings
of reverence, remorse, and moral indignation,--all these could be
traced, they thought, to an origin in experience, to an origin which
in the last resort was sensuous, that is, due to the perceptions of
the senses and the feelings of pleasure and pain which accompany or
follow them.
With regard to the criterion or standard of morality,--the second
question to which I have to call attention,--they held that the
distinction between right and wrong depended upon the consequences of
an action in the way of pleasure and pain. That action was right which
on the whole and in the long run would bring pleasure or happiness to
those whom it affected: that action was wrong which on the whole and
in the long run would bring pain rather than pleasure to those whom it
affected.
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